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2014-02-06 - Coffee and Counterfeit Notes
Dressed in little more than a hoodie and some loose fitting pants, Dilana heads out to get a bite to eat, bit isn't exactly sure where she wants to go. A bit of wandering later she's walking along and sees the sign for the Warm Hands Cafe, and decides it looks like as good a place as any. She makes her way inside and glances around a bit before turning her gaze toward the menu behind the main counter. After looking it over for a bit, she goes up and places an order for a large vanilla latte and a grilled blackened barramundi sandwich with a Cesar Salad for a side. She pays and goes to find a place to sit, taking a small table not far from the door. At a table, not far from the door, is a man in sharp attire. He wears a fedora and a trench coat covers the suit that he wears. The brim of his fedora is pressed slightly down and obscures his eyes to a degree. Gloved hands lightly hold onto a pencil and a small pad of unlined paper sits on the table before him. At a distance, one can see scribbles have been made onto the paper. Though his eyes are obscured, the way his head is pointed, one could assume he's got his gaze upon a couple of occupants at an adjacent table. Dilana gets up one more time and asks for a glass of water while she waits for the rest of her order. Sitting back down she carefully drinks from the glass, pouring the water into the side of her mouth and letting it run down her tongue. Thirst satiated, she glances around idly, noting the others in the room. It's not long before her eyes fall upon the man in the trench coat, her eyes lingering on him for a bit before he follows his apparent gaze toward the next table over and takes another drink from her glass of water. The man in the fedora and trench is rather non-descript. One could make out some ill-kept strands of brown hair poking out from the sides of the fedora. His skin-tone is clearly Caucasian. His face? It has a generic shape but the fedora's shadow is obscuring any features. One wouldn't give him a second glance unless their first glance was a lengthy one. It would become apparent that he's got no visible mouth, nostrils or eyes. The individuals he's got his eyes on are talking quietly amongst themselves. The individuals have a cup of hot tea each and the crumbs on a nearby plate indicates they had eaten something at one time. The Question sits at his table, quietly making notations onto his pad while he observes. His attention doesn't appear to waver from those two individuals caught in his gaze. Of course without eyes, who can tell where exactly he is looking? Of course, with her super sensitive hearing, Dilana could easily listen in to whatever these people were talking about, but instead she does her best to ignore it as so much background noise since it's really none of her business. She just sits there quietly drinking her water as she pulls out a newspaper and begins looking through the local section. With super sensitive hearing comes uh-ohs and oopsies of overheard and eavesdropped conversations. Try as Dilana might, she does pick up a word or two being uttered in hushed tones by the two individuals. Words such as 'Could we take more?' and 'Almost too easy' and 'right under their noses' and 'return back to Hub City'. Now none of these words are alarming, in and of themselves, without Dilana hearing two important crucial words. Those words: 'Counterfeit Coins'. Dilana might also pick up a couple of stray grunts and 'hrms' coming from the Faceless Vigilante at the table next to the door. Perhaps he's concentrating on trying to read their lips? As good a guess as any. More notes are scribbled onto the pad of paper. Dilana looks up for a moment as she hears the noises and scribbles coming from The Question, but she only watches him for a moment or two before looking back down at her paper. Also a moment later her order arrives, and she begins slicing her sandwich into smaller pieces before tossing one of the more bite sized pieces into her mouth, seeming to savor the flavor for a moment before swallowing it whole with no chewing. One of the two individuals that Q has his sights on leans back in his chair and downs the remainder of his tea. The other pulls out a cell phone, deftly stabs at the touch screen with his thumb and then pushes out away from the table. The chairs they are on make a horrid screeching noise the legs scrape against the floor of the establishment. After the other individual's tea is finished, he, too, gets out of his chair. They start off towards the door, one of the two individuals looking around the establishment. He catches sight of an employee and nods to them, a universal indicator that they are done and their table can be bussed. After no more than half a minute after they leave, Q slides his pencil into the ring-binding of his paper pad. The cover of the pad is flipped over to close it and Q stows the pad of paper somewhere on the inside of his trench coat. He, also, pushes away from his table and with hurried steps heads to the exit. Dilana doesn't take long to finish off her sandwich, and then she picks at the salad a bit, no longer really paying attention to the others around in the cafe. That is, until the two at the table next to Q start to leave. The horrible screeching of their chairs against the floor makes her wince sharply with discomfort from the awful noise that was only amplified to her. When Q leaves right after them, she grows a bit curious. She stands and heads to the counter, asking for her latte to be poured into a to go cup. She takes it and heads outside, looking around a bit as she takes care to pull her tail through the door before closing it behind her. Once Dilana leaves the establishment, she'll note the trench-clad Vigilante running down the sidewalk. No one is ahead of him, so it is unclear as to where the two he was following had gone to. Q slows to a stop and steps closer to the building he is in front of. Pressing himself against the facade of the building, gets close to the entrance point to an alley. He cranes his neck and head a bit to glance inside the alleyway. The Question doesn't hesitate in what he does next. He pushes away from the front facade of the building, turns the corner and heads down the alley he looked into. Dilana blinks a bit as she watches Q running ahead, with the other two people nowhere in sight, only for him to peek down an alley for a moment and then make his way into it. She shrugs a bit and decides to follow, still wondering what the heck is going on here, but starting to wonder if she's letting her curiosity get the better of her. She turns the corner into the alley and takes a careful sip of her latte. If there's one person in this world that can talk to you about curiosity, it's The Question. Curiosity and He are well acquainted! If and when Dilana reaches the alley and look down its shadowed corridor, she will easily spy The Question. The faceless vigilante is no longer running and no longer skulking. He's at a door. A couple of old, shallow paved steps leads up to a service entrance, clearly a door leading into the back area of the establishment on the other side of the wall. A singular light above the door would cast a glow on the area around the door if the light bulb inside had been changed a year or four ago. The Question's at the door, working to jimmy the lock open with some crude lock picking tools he produced from somewhere. Dilana blinks and winces a bit as she takes a little too big a sip of her latte when she sees the trench coat clad man and more importantly, what he's doing. Not yet aware that they are on the same side, she jumps to the conclusion that he's some crook trying to break into some store or whatever happens to be on the other side of that service entrance. "Hey! What are you doing?" She cries out as she moves in a bit closer. There's an audible click that even Q's ears pick up as he twists his wrist and jimmies the lock pick into the right sequence of chambers in the mechanism. The victory cannot be relished for long as Dilana's heroic effort rings in his ears. The faceless man snaps his head to the side to look towards the general direction of the entrance and to Dilana in particular. "What I am doing, can be interpreted many ways. Since you asked; I'm losing my leads." Q turns back towards the door, slides the lock picking tools into a pocket. He opens the door and slips into the room beyond. Leads? He must have been talking about the two people in the cafe. They must have left quickly if they were gone by the time she got out the door. But despite still having no idea what is going on, Dilana decides she can't just turn around and walk away now after watching a guy break into a building chasing after two guys. She quickly follows, making her way in behind Q. Inside the room beyond the door, The Question is already at work. The room beyond the door is darkened... perhaps it's an old room used for clerical or office work. About twenty feet from the exit there's an internal door leading to another room. Light at the bottom and around the edges of the door indicates recent activity within that room. Q's making his way in that door's direction with a maglight in hand. Its beam cast this way and that to make sure the Vigilante doesn't trip over anything. He'll turn to regard Dilana, "You've just broke and entered this building. I guess you're with me. Hope you don't have a recognizable face." His tone is almost joking or mocking. The maglight's beam centers on the doorknob to the door leading further into the building. Dilana stops suddenly when Q looks back at her, and blinks at his statement. "Well damn, I probably have one of the most recognizable faces in town, so much for that..." She says with a light laugh, picking up on his tone. "But if I'm with you, what the heck are you after? I'm guessing you're not any ordinary thief..." She asks as she makes her way further in, heading toward Q. "No. I'm not an ordinary thief." The Question confirms for Dilana. He tucks the maglight under one arm, making sure the light still shines on the door in front of him. He glances over his shoulder at Dilana, "What I do take is evidence and information meant to shed light on something obscured in shadow. I'm following two people who have something that would help me procure such evidence and information." Dilana's hearing can probably pick up noises on the other side of the door. A faint, tell-tale clicking, clacking and clanking of machinery at work. If Dilana has any experience with a newspaper operation or magazine publisher, she may recognize some of the unique sounds of printing operations. Some voices can be heard on the other side but distance and obstruction keep the voices from clearly being understood. Dilana tilts her head a bit as she follows, looking around a bit. "So, you're some sort of private investigator then? Pretty thorough I must say... Can I um, help you look for anything?" She asks with a helpful tone, then pauses a moment, listening. "I... I hear voices, and some sort of machine..." She follows the sound up to the door. "It's beyond this door." The Question's jaw muscles tighten as a thoughtful expression befalls the face hidden beneath the pseudoderm of Q's mask. He looks back towards the door and reaches for the knob. He pauses to answer Dilana's question, "I'm looking for two mooks who work the line at making counterfeit bills. I'm looking for the plates or copies of the plates. Something." He looks back to the door and slowly turns knob, relieved that it's unlocked. His voice drops to a whisper, "And it seems like I'm a little further in my investigation..." The door slowly and, thankfully, quietly opens to reveal a large room that takes up three stories of the building they are in. Sure enough there's a printing operation occurring here. Q slips into the room and kneels beside a crate printing ink. A dozen people or so are working the printing operation, including the two individuals that Q was seen observing at the Warm Hands Cafe. Q shuts off the beam to the maglight and says to Dilana, "It might get a touch violent in here, you may want to scram." Dilana quickly slips through the door after Q and promptly kneels down to take cover next to him as she peeks out at the printing operation going on before them. "So, they're making fake money hmm? I'm guessing you figured out the two guys you were following cause they used some of their crafted bills at the cafe?" She asks at a whisper before responding to his warning. "As for violence, I can take care of myself, can even knock out a couple of those guys for ya if you like." The individuals milling about the printing area are wearing coveralls, eye and ear protection. OSHA would approve of the working environment these crooks are working in. The Question confirms her assessment, "Yes; they’re making fake money. Dollars. Canadian Dollars. Euros. Swiss Francs. Or so I have gathered." An eyebrow beneath his skin-tone mask is raised at her, "You can knock some out? By all means try. I'd be more hesitant if I were you. These places, in my experience, often have workers who clock in to work heavily armed." Q looks away from her and around the crate of ink. He glances around, noting locations and activities. He says as he watches, "Have at it than. If things go south, run back the way we came." Q's grip on the maglight tightens. Clearly the heavy instrument is going to be used in a manner other than lighting his way. "Here goes..." Dilana whispers as she nods and peeks back at the men around the room, taking note of the ear protection. She takes a deep breath before quietly poking her head out from behind the crate and looks for any men that are more out of the way and won't be immediately spotted when they go down. She takes careful aim, and ramps up the power as she sends out a few focused sonic blasts at the heads of a few of the men, hoping that the increased concussive force of the sound waves would be enough to knock them out despite the ear plugs, and yet not leave them with brain damage, or kill them. The nearly imperceptible waves of sonic force strike the men like a ton of bricks. The men working the printing presses are not usually push-overs, either. Their builds and bulk would lead one to believe they've spent a lifetime either physically laboring or honing their bodies for physical exertion. Though, regardless of their builds, these guys are caught flat-footed by the expulsion of sonic force. Since the focused blasts were directed to their heads, they all lurch violently forward and flip head over heels. Eye and ear protection go flying from the blows. Equilibrium for these gentlemen has been damaged. The few individuals who were not targeted have their attention drawn from their toils to their comrades. One man shouts, "Jesus, something's goin' down!" The remaining men scatter about the machinery. Telltale sounds of clanking metal and the click and snap of firearms can be identified. The Question raised his hands up a second after Dilana sent off her focused sonic-based attack in an effort to shield himself if he needed to, since he's unfamiliar with her abilities. Q peeks around the crate of printing ink to see her handywork, "Deafeningly effective. Must work quickly now." Q stands, gets a good grip on his maglight and fans out. He calls back to Dilana, "Be careful." Dilana nods to Q as he comments on her attack and says they must work quickly. "I'll cover you!" She whispers over to him as he begins to move out. She quickly pokes her head out from behind cover and fires off a series of clicks, getting the echolocation picture back almost instantly before ducking back behind the crate. Now knowing the positions of the men, she once again peeks out and takes aim at any of them that may have their attention drawn by Q, firing off some more sonic pulses at them. She knows that she has to move now, since the men will surely have pinpointed her position by now, and so in the confusion, she runs out from behind the crate and after Q, tucking her tail close to her body. The clicks and clanks of ammo filling chambers soon fades and is replaced by frantic mumblings and shoutings from the remaining workers, "Someone get Chuck on the horn!" is one shout. Another shout comes in the form of, "-they dead? Were they killed? What's going on?!" Other mumblings cannot be heard. A shout of command is made though, "Shut-up. Just shoot whomever you don't recognize. Chuck's going to have our heads if this operation is crashed. Lou; Grab the spares and get outta here." The Question makes his way quickly around the printing operation. His gaze does not drift to the machinery and his attention isn't distracted away from the walking paths around him. He's got a singular focus on the individuals here rather than the equipment. He comes to a corner of the room and a blind spot that is created by a piece of large machinery and rolls of paper. He kneels down, fleshes his flashlight up into the air. The maglight's beam washing the ceiling with light. A moment after the beam strikes the ceiling there's a gasp and 'huh' around the corner from where Q kneels. Using that as a cue, Q swiftly rounds the corner. He finds a man with a handgun looking up to where the beam of light had be cast. Before this man knows it, the butt of a maglight is shoved into his larynx and a knee is driven into his midsection. The man clatters to the ground in a heap. Q moves on after visually searching the man he felled. Another man is brought down by a blast from Dilana. Between the sonic bursts and the echolocation attempts, the dogs in this neighborhood should be howling and whining at this point! A man's voice can be heard several feet away behind some machinery, "Oh, damn! Steve's down! Oh, man. Oh, man. What's going on? We need to get out of here!" The commanding voice calls out, "Shut it! We stay. We clean this up. Or Chuck's going to do far worse to us!" Four men are left and the fourth is the one the commanding voice told to 'grab the spares' Dilana sees that Q seems to be able to handle himself just fine, and as he moves around the corner, she stops at the spot where he had just been, hiding behind the machinery and rolls of paper. Always listening to what's going on in the room, it quickly becomes clear that there is one man who seems to be in authority around here at the moment, and she wonders what the other men may do if he's taken out. Peeking out one more time, she quickly scans the part of the room she hears his voice coming from, looking for him and trying to see if she is able to blast him from her current position. Gunshots ring out from one or more of the nervous men. The confined spaces and all of the metal machinery of the area create a tinny, ringing echo that reverberates throughout the room deafeningly. At the sounds of the gunfire, Q instinctively drops back down into a kneeling position and pushes himself up against the machinery. Using the maglight, Q pushes up the brim of his fedora. Unseen eyes narrow as he tries to focus on movement across the room. At this point, the men working this printing operation have taken cover or shelter and aren't moving about out in the open. That isn't to say they can't be seen... it's just they are aware of the threat and they aren't making themselves obvious targets. The man with the commanding voice calls out, "Hold your fire! Unless you're actually shooting at someone! Frickin' Idiots! Jones. Jones! You there?" Another voice, previously unheard before, "Over here Eran-" this voice sounds remarkably close to Dilana from her vantage point... must be on the other side of the machinery and rolls of paper, "-I was lookin' for Phil. I think he's down." Phil must have been who Q clocked a moment ago. As the gunshots ring out in the enclosed room and echo around loudly, Dilana doubles over and shudders in pain, clutching her head for a moment as the noise is unfortunately amplified by her sensitive hearing. She soon recovers enough to shake off the pain but it'll be a bit before she can focus enough to use her sonic powers again. Hearing a new voice coming closer, and looking for someone who may have already been brought down, by Q if he's up here. She stays quiet, waiting for the guy to get close, then quickly makes her way out from behind the machinery and spins around to kick him solidly in the head with her tail. She then grabs for the radio, trying to catch it before it can hit the ground and make any more noise. Another mook is downed by the flailing and unexpected tail of Dilana. The man manages a sharp gasping inhalation of air before he's clobbered, but other than that Dilana manages to take him down swiftly and effectively. No one is alarmed, more so, by Dilana's quick action. Q peeks through the machinery and around it to make sure his path is clear. He presses onward, standing from his kneeling position and making his way through the machinations of illicit printing. His footfalls are quiet, he's being stealthy and his eyes are keenly looking for the remaining mooks that work this operation. Q's keen gaze misses someone, though. One of the burly men of this operation had wedged themselves between two tool dyes and as Q passed by, he slipped out quietly to follow behind the Faceless Vigilante. In one hand is a long, heavy wrench. In the other is a handgun. It is the wrench that this man raises up. A sharp pain slams into Q's neck and shoulder as the man brings the tool down with a thud onto the unsuspecting Vigilante. Q drops to his knees and swears he sees stars or birds hovering in a circle in his gaze. Q grunts and groans and the big burly man who got the drop on the Question calls out, "Hey Eran! I got him! I got the bastard!" Dilana spots the large man coming up behind Q, but her ears are still ringing from the gunshots and she dares not call out to Q only to have the man turn and shoot at her. She quickly moves to catch up, hoping to get the man from behind, but is a bit too late to save Q from getting a blow from the wrench. Wincing a bit in sympathy to how much that had to hurt, she quickly comes up behind the burly man and aims a hard kick between his legs, hoping to drop him quickly. When an individual aims a strike between the legs of a man while unknowingly approaching this man from behind? You do not need to be armed with much hope in order for the strike to have its intended effects. Sure enough the man who called for Eran and who clobbered the Faceless Vigilante joins Q on the ground. The strike was heavy, hard and unexpected. With pain welling up all the way in the burly man's throat, he lays face down on the concrete floor of the printing operation. He gasps silently for air as he clutches at his softer areas in agony. Weapons clattered uselessly to the ground. 'Eran' came around the corner with briskness in his step. He wasn't running as he assumed there was only one individual harassing the operation. When he turns the corner and sees his colleague on the ground, his body tenses and his weapon, a shotgun, is brought up in his defense. He calls out, "Who the Hell are you?!" Q sat back up, weight resting on his knees. He answers the man with the shotgun, "Ugh; I'm just a man concerned with the economy. And this-" He painfully gestures towards Dilana, "-is my swimming instructor." The man with the shotgun, Eran, points the weapon in their general direction, "I don't know what your angle is but when Chuck hears about this..." he trails off briefly, "... well I guess he doesn't have to now, huh? I'll kill you myself and clean this all up." The weapon continues to threateningly point at the Vigilante and Dilana. Dilana is about to finish up the burly man with a knockout blow when Eran rounds the corner and points a shotgun at her and Q. She slowly turns to face him, holding back a chuckle as Q says she's his swimming instructor. "Maybe you could do that, or maybe you could let us go, or maybe I could hit you with a sonic blast with enough punch to basically turn your brain to mush. I was holding back with the blasts on your men..." She says, really just trying to buy herself some time while the ringing in her ears dies down. If Eran lets her finish her statement, she's already aiming at his head and sends out another sonic pulse, weaker this time for the close range, but still quite potent. Eran arches an eyebrow which has the effect of adding even more wrinkles to his brow than are there normally; If those lines are referred to as Worry Lines than Eran has spent a good chunk of his life worrying. The man with the shotgun shakes his head at Dilana as she speaks. The shotgun is given the stereotypical, movie-esque threatening cock. He says in response to her, "I'm sure I'm faster on the dra-" The boast he was just uttering is cut short by the sonic pulse from Dilana. Eran moves as if he took a hook from a champion boxer. His head and neck twist to the side violently which spins around the rest of his body until he backs up and butts against some machinery nearby. The Question stands up, spending the last few moments centering himself and shunting the sudden shock and pain to a deep crevice in his mind. Once fully erect, he checks to make sure the maglight is still in hand. Steps are taken to intercept the man dazed by Dilana's blast. He shoves the end of the maglight into Eran's upper abdomen to drive the rest of the air out of his lungs and then swings it upward. The arc of the make-shift weapon would cause it to crack against Eran's jaw. Eran flops to the ground, shotgun remaining useless on the floor afterwards. Q looks to Dilana, "Thanks." Dilana would have laughed if it wasn't such a serious situation. Before she could finish incapacitating Eran, Q beat her to it. "Quicker on the draw huh? I think not." She says as she turns to Q and nods as he thanks her. "You're welcome. Sorry I couldn't save you from being clobbered with the wrench." Speaking of the guy with the wrench, she takes a moment to look at him, and if he's going to try to get up, he'll get a tail kick just like the guy with the radio. The Question turns his head and looks down at the crumpled form of Eran. He shrugs his shoulders, reminding himself that one of them is in considerable pain. After wincing, he looks back to Dilana and says, "Don't worry about me. I've been through worse. Point-blank bullet to the head and fifteen minutes beneath the harbor in Hub City... was worse than this." He humphs and looks around, "Suppose the boys and girls in blue should be made aware of this unregistered and unlicensed printing operation. Photo Ops and promotions are waiting for the lucky few." He looks back to Dilana, "By my count one escaped and, I imagine, with some copies of the printing plates. I've got more work to do." Dilana turns back to Q and nods to him. "Well that's good. I'm glad my ears finally stopped ringing from those gunshots, really gave me a headache for a bit there." She says before nodding as he mentions reporting this to the police. At the mention of the escaped guy with the plates, she nods once more. "Well, it was nice meeting you and I'm glad I could help you here. Sorry I thought you were some crook at first. If you want to team up again sometime, here..." She says as she pulls out her receipt from the cafe and wrights her name and number on the back before handing it to him. The Question reaches out to take the receipt. Gloved fingers rub at the ink the cafe's printer printed the numbers out in, "Cash Register is going to need to change its cartridge soon..." He muses out loud more to himself than to Dilana. He commits her contact information to memory and then glances up to her, "And hard feelings about thinking I'm a crook. I did break in here, didn't I? And you're an accomplice, so you need to beat feet before the NYPD show up." He turns to make his own escape but pauses and turns back, "I'll be in touch to let you know how this investigation ends up." Dilana nods and quickly looks around for the easiest exit. "Thanks, I am actually curious to hear how this turns out, but I do hope we run into each other again. Till then, take care!" She says with a wave before quickly making her way out of the building and out onto the street where she begins heading for Central Park like nothing ever happened.